Stakeholder Engagement & Political Participation
We see ourselves as part of the broader social fabric. We believe open, ongoing dialogue fosters the common good. That means not only being transparent about our actions, but listening to customers, investors, communities, and other stakeholders and inviting them to share their input.
Stakeholder Engagement
We pursue engagement by hosting town halls and other community events, convening stakeholder conferences, conducting surveys, and meeting face-to-face with a broad array of outside interests, from local-government officials to advocacy organizations.
Throughout the year, we meet with investors, nonprofits, community associations, customer focus groups, business associations, civic organizations, tribal communities, members of the media, cultural and historic-resource stewardship organizations, the military, organizations that represent the needs of underrepresented communities, individual property owners, and a host of others.
We always look for opportunities to reduce potential obstacles to meaningful engagement. For example, we translate our materials into Spanish and other languages, as appropriate, and advertise with, and seek coverage from, media outlets in the languages spoken by the affected communities. To strengthen our outreach to the Spanish-speaking community, Dominion Energy has joined and/or built relationships with the Hispanic Chambers of Commerce, the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities, and similar organizations. In 2021, we launched a new ESG websiteopens in a new window to improve our transparency on such matters with all company stakeholders.
Political Participation
As a company whose operations are subject to extensive regulation throughout its multi-state service areas, Dominion Energy participates in the political process at the local, state, and national levels. We believe an open, transparent, and accessible political process is one of the most important components of a successful democracy, so we encourage all our stakeholders to participate. We support both the letter and the spirit of all applicable federal and state laws governing our political activities and our actions, holding ourselves to the highest ethical standards.
By actively participating in the political process, we help educate, shape policies, and promote effective public and government relations. Dominion Energy operates a political action committee, or PAC, which is strictly voluntary and nonpartisan. Membership is open to eligible employees and shareholders.
We strive to conduct our business as transparently as possible when engaging elected officials, regulators, environmental and safety agencies, as well as community and business leadership, as we seek to build public trust and form lasting and mutually beneficial partnerships. To that end, in 2022 we intend to publish a report detailing our membership in organizations that influence climate policy.
We routinely evaluate our approach to political contributions and participation. We adopted a lobbying and political contributions policy, which governs Dominion Energy’s lobbying activities, including direct, indirect, and grassroots lobbying; our participation in trade associations; and our political contributions. In 2021, we updated this policy to address state and federal political contributions by our political action committee. Specifically, we no longer make contributions to independent-only political expenditure committees in support of or in opposition to a campaign (also known as Super PACs) as defined by the Federal Elections Commission. To learn more, please visit our Political Contributions & Participationopens in a new window website.